When preparations are underway for a holiday, the housewives try to set the table to the maximum with dishes and meat snacks. This is a slightly wrong approach. Of course, there are enough meat eaters, many guests will only be happy with such an abundance of dishes prepared from the ingredient so revered by them. However, almost always among those invited there are those who do not eat meat. Or those who at least try to eat it as little as possible. As a result, they are unlikely to appreciate your feast. In addition, meat and products from it are quite expensive today, so celebration with this approach will certainly result in an impressive amount. What to do? How to please all the guests and at the same time not to stay on their own? Original vegetable snacks will come to the rescue. On the festive table, subject to a creative approach to the cooking process, such dishes will certainly not be embarrassing to put. Moreover, many vegetable snacks, the recipes of which sometimes simply amaze with their originality, are quite capable of overshadowing their meat "brothers." And become a real decoration of the festive table.
We will talk further about how to cook such dishes. We will offer you quite a few interesting recipes, and you can choose the best for yourself. Vegetable snacks prepared on them will certainly cause surprise and admiration for your guests and relatives.
Small digression
Before proceeding with the description of each recipe, I would like to say a few words as parting words. As you know, any snacks - vegetable or meat, it doesn’t matter, they are not needed to saturate the guests. They are designed to slightly suppress the appetite and decorate the table. And also, what a sin to conceal, as much as possible to take an empty place. Of course, pickles and sandwiches can do this, however, you must agree, it is much more pleasant when the table looks elegant. And the dishes on it delight guests. And not only in appearance, but also in exquisite taste. Based on this, and you need to cook. After all, whatever you say, a vegetable - it is a vegetable. Therefore, we must try to submit it as profitably as possible.
At this, perhaps, it is time to close the theoretical part. Let's get to practice. We present you the best holiday vegetable snacks.
Cheap and cheerful, but how beautiful ...
Cut eggplant into circles, salt it a little, then fry thoroughly on both sides. Important: put from the pan not on a plate, but on a paper towel to get rid of excess fat. Combine two tablespoons of mayonnaise and a couple of cloves of finely chopped garlic. You can add a little dill, if you like this spice. Sauce the fried pieces in the sauce. Tomatoes, the size of which should be equal to the diameter of the blue ones, cut into circles, put them on each piece of eggplant, sprinkle generously on top with hard cheese. By the way, if there is no time to bother with eggplants, you can do without them. All previous manipulations need to be repeated with pieces of tomatoes.
Making the peacock's tail!
We prepare two eggplants in the same way as described above. We cut in circles two tomatoes and a cucumber. Grate one hundred grams of cheese, mix it with mayonnaise and chopped garlic. We lay eggplants on a dish, and we must try to give them the shape of a peacock's tail. On top of each piece of blue put a tomato, coat with a mixture of cheese and mayonnaise, then put the cucumber, which is decorated with half the olives. Important: such an appetizer must stand in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.
Tulips, but not flowers ...
Absolutely win-win option. Such tulips are able to overshadow all the snacks on the table - whether vegetable or meat. Just gorgeous in appearance, the dish, which also has a decent taste.
Take nine elongated tomatoes. Ideally, the grade "ladies' fingers." Cut them carefully, a little before the end, into a couple of centimeters, crosswise. Remove the flesh, cut a small hole in the base, in other words, get rid of the stalk. Take 200 grams of cheese, grate it, mix with finely chopped garlic and a few tablespoons of thick mayonnaise. Fill the heads of “flowers”, make stems from dense onion feathers (just insert them into the cut holes), beautifully, in the form of a bouquet, lay out on a white dish.
Cheese and pepper rainbow appetizer
Four hundred grams of cheese, a bunch of herbs and a small head of garlic chop in a blender. Add mayonnaise to the mixture. It will need to be added little by little, so that a rather thick mass is obtained at the output. Take some Bulgarian peppercorns of different colors. You can two, and if you find, then three shades are better. Cut ponytails from peppercorns, get seeds and partitions, cut into rather thick rings. Then each start with the mixture. If desired, you can decorate the top with circles of boiled eggs.
The boats
To cook this dish you will need small young zucchini. We cut them in half, then slightly cut the bottom so that your “boats” more confidently stand on the plate. We take out all the pulp with a spoon. Cut the onion, a couple of red Bulgarian peppercorns into small pieces, fry, add the flesh of zucchini after a while. Salt pepper. We begin. Sprinkle with grated cheese on top and send for ten minutes in the microwave.
By the way, instead of zucchini, you can take eggplant. As for the filling itself, the composition of the ingredients can be varied. In addition, it is recommended to serve such an appetizer with garlic-mayonnaise sauce, which, as is clear from the above recipes, goes well with vegetables.
Rolls
Zucchini is generally grateful material in the hands of a skilled hostess. Many excellent snacks can be prepared from them. Let’s try now to make original rolls. From one hundred grams of cream cheese, several cloves of garlic and mayonnaise, we already make the mass familiar to us. Zucchini and cucumbers suitable in size are cut lengthwise into thin plates. Then fry them, put them on napkins, wait until the oil is absorbed. We spread it on a plate, place a layer of cucumber on top. We spread the cheese mass on one edge, add a tomato slice to it on the side, and turn it into a roll.
By the way, despite the fact that we used the temperature effect in the preparation of both boats and rolls, these are all cold vegetable snacks. They are served on the table only after cooling.
A few words about pita bread
Preparing for the festive feast, do not forget about the rolls so beloved by our mistresses, prepared on pita bread. You can start them with various fillers, including vegetable ones. There may be many options, probably, every housewife has her own, special recipe. For example, we will offer you our own - tell you about how to cook a very simple, but unusually beautiful roll with Korean carrots.
Take a sheet of rectangular pita bread and brush it with mayonnaise. Lay another layer on top. Pour abundantly with any grated hard cheese. Put a layer of Korean carrots on top. Then sprinkle with finely chopped greens. Close with one more sheet. Repeat all the above procedures again. Roll it tight (in length, not width!) All into a roll and send to the refrigerator. After a few hours, the sausage can be cut into pieces, laid out nicely on a dish and served.
When preparing vegetable snacks, do not lose sight of such a variety as salads. Of course, nobody can surprise anyone with a banal mixture of cucumbers and tomatoes , but there are many other, much more attractive recipes.
Peking Salad
Easy to prepare and in composition, such a salad will please you with its bright and cheerful appearance. Take a cabbage of Beijing cabbage and cut it, and as thin as possible. Fold in a salad bowl, add a little salt and crush a little. Then add canned corn and chopped onion. Juice from a jar of corn must be drained! Dress everything with thick sweet mayonnaise and decorate with boiled eggs in sliced circles.
Bright Bean Salad
Red beans (300 grams), soak overnight, then rinse and cook for half an hour. It may take longer, it all depends on the variety. The main thing is not to miss the moment when it begins to fall apart. In principle, you can take a jar of canned. Then, after cooling, put the ready beans in a salad bowl, add finely chopped to it: onion (always red!), Three stalks of celery, a bunch of favorite greens and five radishes. Lemon mayonnaise is perfect as a dressing.
Conclusion
Vegetable snacks - dishes that can be prepared without carefully following the recipe. That is, using their own imagination and based on existing culinary experience. Fortunately, the soil is fertile, and the ingredients themselves are perfectly combined with each other.
Vegetable snacks, recipes with photos of which are presented in our article, are a drop in the ocean of available options. Start with them for now, and then slowly move on to creating your own unique dishes.